friendly interest and association among Baptist women, the promotion of a more general Christian fellowship, and the development of larger social and mental qualities. She is a charter member and trustee of the Home for the Aged in Somerville, a director of the Baptist Home in Cambridge, a member of the Benevolent Social Union of the Union Square Baptist Church of Somerville, of the Somerville Hospital Association, of the Associated Charities of Somerville, and associated member of the Young Women’s Christian Association of Boston and Somerville. She gives her name, money, and influence to the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, to the Helping Hand Society, and the Charity Club of Boston. Her latest philanthropic work, and one in which her heart is deeply interested, and to which she has given herself without stint, is the Somerville Day Nursery, of which she is one of the founders, being also a vice-president.
While Mrs. Simpson finds her most congenial work in her own beautiful home life and in her many charitable enterprises, she is not neglectful of the pleasant demands of society and friends. She is one of the Board of Directors of the Daughters of Maine Club, and is actively interested in promoting the objects of the society. She is one of the charter members of the Heptorean Club of Somerville.
Into patriotic work Mrs. Simpson puts great love and interest. For several years she has been an efficient member of the board of management of the John Adams Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. At the Eleventh Continental Congress of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, held in Washington, D.C., in February, 1902, she was elected, by a very large and flattering vote, to the office of vice-president-general for Massachusetts. She now belongs to some of the most important standing committees of the National Board, namely: on Finance, on Continental Hall, on Building Committee, on Ways and Means, on the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and on the American Monthly Magazine. To her arduous official duties she has attended in such a way as to command the respect and admiration of all concerned, discharging them promptly, ably, and thoroughly.
ELLEN BEALE MOREY was born in Orfordville, Grafton County, N.H., daughter of Royal and Josephine (Johnson) Beal. Through her father she claims descent from Jonathan Carver, the traveller, who explored in 1766-68 the region immediately west and north-west of the Great Lakes, then inhabited only by Indians, with whom he was in most friendly relations. The story of his receiving from them the gift of a large tract of land, including the sites of the present cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, though not found in the sketches of Mr. Carver in the biographical cyclopaedias, has in recent years been given newspaper publicity. The deed is said to have been recorded upon a rock in a cave near the Falls of St. Anthony. Jonathan Carver died in London in 1780. He had gone there to make arrangements for the publication of a book giving an account of his travels and explorations (a few copies of which are now in existence), and also, it is said, to try to secure a regular deed of the land granted to him by the Indians.
On her mother’s side Mrs. Morey is a descendant of Colonel Thomas Johnson, of Newbury, Vt., who served in the war of the Revolution, and who was in official correspondence with General Washington, autograph letters from whom are still preserved in the family. Very early in life Ellen Beale manifested that power and individuality of thought which led her to differ materially with her family and teachers in matters of opinion and practice. Born into a pro-slavery family who had, in earlier times, been slave-holders, she espoused the anti-slavery cause at a time when it meant disgrace and ostracism to do so. When a mere child, she evinced that passion for music which has been the dominating influence in her life, playing from memory at four years of age selections from the great composers which she had heard her father play upon the pipe organ, then as now a part of the family establishment.
